Blu-ray will be History-Microsoft!!!!

Blu-ray may have won, but Xbox Europe boss Chris Lewis reckons "shiny discs" will look as rubbish as boring old vinyl records and those hilarious Video Cassette Recorders before long. Lewis said, "Going forwards, digital downloads is really where it's at," . "More and more people's ongoing and ever-increasing downloading of music and movies is becoming the de facto. I think that's going to happen in very short order; people want to consume that way," he continued.

"Before very long we will look back wistfully at shiny discs as something that was somewhat a historic phenomenon in a way that we kind of think about vinyl or VCRs today." According to Lewis, the shift away from using discs to store media and towards using them as coasters will happen "sooner than any of us think". "That's the future direction, and I think that's going to be the case in the next 12-18 months," Lewis predicted. "I think we're going to be talking much more about that than anything else. Do I think that this Christmas will somehow be defined by DVD playback? I genuinely don't think that will be the case,"

What about the material impact of the demise of HD-DVD on your console velocity, Chris? "I do not think that [the demise of HD DVD] will have any material impact on our console velocity." "And I think other factors, specifically our architecture around downloads, is far more advantageous and important for the future. We are best placed to offer that, we already offer that, our online pedigree is such that we will offer the best and most seamless experience."

*www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=94696

grapes are sour..big time..

The world does not have enough bandwidth to support mass downloading of 1080p HD movies... It's going to take a while for that to become a reality...

and world can survive without hd rips

why do these guys have to open their monkey holes as if they are nostradamus

why cant they just shut up and do their work

They obviously would not have been saying that if HD-DVD had won. Now that the format they chose to back has failed and was defeated by Blu-ray, they are saying that the future is in HD downloads

. Grapes, indeed, are sour.

aah..but what they have said is probably true to a certain xtent...but they seem to have declared it decades before when the impact is to be really seen..

btw..xbox live is great..have tried it and its awesum...Ps3 doesnt come close in terms of online content and support

^^ not necessarily ... ther were a lot of rumored reports that MS was actually backing a "dieing format" (hd-dvd) to get time and push online dwnlds developments

iMav said:
why do these guys have to open their monkey holes as if they are nostradamus why cant they just shut up and do their work

superbbbb !!! and i liked the nostradamus part

krazyfrog. said:
They obviously would not have been saying that if HD-DVD had won. Now that the format they chose to back has failed and was defeated by Blu-ray, they are saying that the future is in HD downloads. Grapes, indeed, are sour.

true....

they said the same to google...
anybody rememebr...???
and they were wrong...

hope they stop preducting the future....

/offtopic

@naveen: Nice siggy! I'm waiting till I can play Crysis at full settings (1920*1200) at an affordable price...!

/offtopic

Actually, that could be a reality soon enough. At least abroad.

In UK, a 2 Mega-byte per second unlimited comes for really cheap [less that 1000 INR per month] Therefore, 10 GB will take one and a half hours to download. Taking into consideration the bandwidth lost, it still clocks in at about two hours.

Compare that to the time it would take you to go to the store and actually buy it.

Besides, buying something online and downloading is going to be cheaper as well. You don't have to pay for the media.

Of course, here in India, assuming you have a regular 32 KBps connection, it would take you close to four days which is completely unfeasible.

Overall, the best solution to watch HD content in the UK is to have a HTPC with a 2MBps line connected to your 1080p HDTV.

1080p rip 2GB? You crazy? 1080p is at least 8GB. Also, most people don't use that 2mbps+ connection to the max. If HD downloads become a norm, like in the case of AppleTV, then the internet will definitely choke up.

The concept of digital downloads is very interesting and something to look forward to. It will also get rid of all those plastic discs lying around. If in case you didn't realise, a Blu ray disc holds a 40GB 1080p movie. That is a high quality file with a lot of bitrate and lossless soundtracks. HD downloads are currently limited to mainly 720p and that too a not so great bandwidth (usually 5mbps or so)

W

amd64_man2005 said:
Xbox Europe boss

Correct me if m wrong but doesnt Europe have the fastest broadband connections for home use?

@goobimama,
what u playin these days? I just finished bioshck, after too much delay. But it ran fine on 1920x1200 ofcourse not as smooth as on 1280x800 :-(

1080p HD videos are usually useless, u need at least a 42" TV to view it properly. 720p Videos are good enough for most of the people.

I for once, will never download a 1080p video no matter what. My Monitor goes upto 1280X1024 so why download 1080p

720p DivX/Xvid Video usually come in 2 GB which have high quality with MP3 Audio or X.264 rips with H.263 Audio for PCs

^^^the xbox 360 is meant to be used with television sets..so when microsoft means online downloads..it should mean that they will be viewed on high resolution plasma tvs..and 1080p is a standard for 40+ inch plasma tvs..who would use the xbox for viewing content on the pc screen ?

W

@gx_saurav, u talking about a 45 min video?

goobimama said:
/offtopic

@naveen: Nice siggy! I'm waiting till I can play Crysis at full settings (1920*1200) at an affordable price...!

/offtopic

thnks...

goobimama said:
1080p rip 2GB? You crazy? 1080p is at least 8GB. Also, most people don't use that 2mbps+ connection to the max. If HD downloads become a norm, like in the case of AppleTV, then the internet will definitely choke up.

The concept of digital downloads is very interesting and something to look forward to. It will also get rid of all those plastic discs lying around. If in case you didn't realise, a Blu ray disc holds a 40GB 1080p movie. That is a high quality file with a lot of bitrate and lossless soundtracks. HD downloads are currently limited to mainly 720p and that too a not so great bandwidth (usually 5mbps or so)

dont forgot we need Hard disk in Tera byte.... :-D

2x500 GB

gx_saurav said:
1080p HD videos are usually useless, u need at least a 42" TV to view it properly. 720p Videos are good enough for most of the people.

I for once, will never download a 1080p video no matter what. My Monitor goes upto 1280X1024 so why download 1080p

720p DivX/Xvid Video usually come in 2 GB which have high quality with MP3 Audio or X.264 rips with H.263 Audio for PCs

true....

do u have any black borderrs?? or full screen???
i am getting black borders... but my download are not 720p ... they are Xvid`s .. i mean most are @xx0`s .....

@wideboy: Just about everything

720p ~ 2GB. ROFL!

@naveen: Of course there will be black borders! Even a 16:9 HDTV will have black borders cause most movies are those theatre wide aspect ratio 2.35:1 or something. Of course, with Media Player classic's zoom feature, you can curb down those black borders if need be.

is there a way to remove them.. ??

it really irritating....

having a big screen and not able to watch to ful glory is really horrible...

On topic...........Sour grapes, that's all. They wouldn't have said the same thing if HD DVD won the format war.

I was just giving an example that for computer playback only, DivX & xVid 720p videos are good enough for the mazority of users

for the pc..spot on...

Computer playback? You do realise this thread is about the XBOX dude talking rubbish eh? Xbox is generally connected to a large screen TV where HD makes all the difference.

@naveen_reloaded: In VLC, press C to crop video to predifined sizes. In Media Player Classic, I enable the number lock on the keypad and press 9 to zoom into the video.

Have they completely forgotten the concept of what is called Backup ?
I literally use WD 1 TB Essential Edition USB 2.0 Drive for my backups.
Common you just cannot download 4.5 GB or 8 GB of content to watch a movie again sometime later. You gotta back them somewhere.

Microsoft is jealous of Sony's victory that shows it all.

^^ I think with a free flowing 8mbps connection, downloading the movie again is quite possible. They are doing it after all with the AppleTV...

this is just trash talk after loosing.
who the hell said downloads can destroy a media ?
I for example, still need DVDs inspite of everything being available online.
even for 1080p or 720p rips, I need media to store them in.
and BDs play a huge part there.
even with the 720p or 1080p AoTuV b5 vorbis + VP7 videos in MKV that I download, I reserve a DVD per movie, as each is ~3-4 gb.

infact, I have indirectly replaced Blu Ray DVDs and DVD-Video discs with GE-DVD(Gautham's Enhanced DVD) which uses MKV format for video with menus, VP7 or x264 codec for video and MusePack or AoTuV Beta5 for audio. And soon it will evolve to GEBD(gautham's enhanced blu ray disc)

N

since HD is history , blu ray rules and its all about the storage ..i dont know what MS is thinking.maybe they gonna bring VHS back :lol:

@Gautham
too true...
we still needs media to store our data!!
and we are needing larger and larger storage as the days go on!!!

in btw..
looking forward for the day when a news like "Micorsoft is now history" pops up somewhere!!!

MetalheadGautham said:
this is just trash talk after loosing.
who the hell said downloads can destroy a media ?
I for example, still need DVDs inspite of everything being available online.
even for 1080p or 720p rips, I need media to store them in.
and BDs play a huge part there.
even with the 720p or 1080p AoTuV b5 vorbis + VP7 videos in MKV that I download, I reserve a DVD per movie, as each is ~3-4 gb.

infact, I have indirectly replaced Blu Ray DVDs and DVD-Video discs with GE-DVD(Gautham's Enhanced DVD) which uses MKV format for video with menus, VP7 or x264 codec for video and MusePack or AoTuV Beta5 for audio. And soon it will evolve to GEBD(gautham's enhanced blu ray disc)

Didn't you get it? Internet will be so fast and cheap, that you won't mind downloading the movie again. Sort of like a streaming thing. It's already happening. Burning those downloaded movies and saving them is just another chore that most don't want to do.

goobimama said:
Didn't you get it? Internet will be so fast and cheap, that you won't mind downloading the movie again. Sort of like a streaming thing. It's already happening. Burning those downloaded movies and saving them is just another chore that most don't want to do.

continue living in 2208

^LOL

BTW,grapes are sour when u dont get it :lol:

MetalheadGautham said:
continue living in 2208

I myself do that btw. I delete all movies (HD) I download. If I have to watch it again, I just download it again. And all this coming from 2x2mbps connections with bandwidth capped. Imaging what it would be like on a 5mbps connection without any bandwidth restrictions...

These guys are saying that the disc's will become extinct in some time. So where the hell are you going to store all your d'loaded data??? U'll run out of space sooner or later!!

and beside's this revo is not even remotely applicable to India. An 8mbps UL connection costs abt 560 INR in china where as we have to pay ard 1k for a 256UL!!!!!

WTF!

@goobi, That's completely true. Bandwidth has become far more disposable than storage space abroad. People keep only a few gems, otherwise it is download - watch - delete.

@napster, I know man!!! It pisses me off so much too!

The thing is internet will be so fast and cheap, that you won't need to store your downloaded data. How difficult is it to grasp that concept? Even your documents, photos, will all be stored in the cloud.

And if you haven't noticed yet, the rest of the world gives a pi$s about the technological status of India. Forget that, even the Indian govt does the same I think.

goobimama said:
The thing is internet will be so fast and cheap, that you won't need to store your downloaded data. How difficult is it to grasp that concept? Even your documents, photos, will all be stored in the cloud.

I agree, but still , we do need backup of important data dont you think?
We cant just store data online and hope the server's wont crash.
IMO it's always more satisfying to have important data as copy.
Movies and songs can always be streamed.

goobimama said:
And if you haven't noticed yet, the rest of the world gives a pi$s about the technological status of India. Forget that, even the Indian govt does the same I think.

Got that part right,the day we get a 10mbps unlimited for cheap will be the day the world would have forgotten about internet speeds.

^^ Also some things you wont want to store online due to privacy concerns..

^^ just use FUSE over eCryptFS for privacy

but the point is, the data won't be WITH you. take the event of a disaster. What will you do with telephone lines and towers cut off ? I myself feel crippled when these bloody BSNL guys have their regular 4 hours per day downtimes.

kalpik said:
^^ Also some things you wont want to store online due to privacy concerns..

Point taken.And with every online service provider trying to use customer data,I'd rather have my data offline in a hard-disk.

rayraven said:
Point taken.And with every online service provider trying to use customer data,I'd rather have my data offline in a hard-disk.

and even the cost factor is important here.

So you saying you'd rather have your important data on something as unsafe as an optical disc? Whoever said your hard drive isn't going to be there (some say that of course). The hard drive capacities are on the rise. You will have your data on your local disk. But what you won't have is 10GB movies cluttering up that disk space. Cause without movies, pictures and music, there isn't much you can do with so much disk space (other than maybe video professionals). Flash disks are getting more widespread and reliable.

I'm not saying Optical discs are going to fly out the window in two years. No way. There will always be people who would like the boxed version and the covert art. But there's a lot of heat on people not having to store movies, music and pictures (flickR/.Mac + AppleTV?) locally. And I think it's very much possible in the near future.

^I said i'd have it on a hard-disk or an SSD coz they're more reliable.
Never said optical.

N

[to everyone] how exactly do u get a 10-50gb movie in ur hdd when u r supposed to buy and not dl ? coz movies wont be free ,ever.

The debate is between Blu ray vs an online movie distribution service like iTunes movie rentals. Movies will not be free of course

now this is interesting,we back up our movies on DVDs after downloading(legal and otherwise) instead of buying the original DVDs itself

..If I were to choose between blu-ray DVDs and online paid download,I would prefer blu-ray disks even if they costs a lil more.

^^ What if your internet was a speedy enough for instant playback with your remote without bandwidth caps and it was 150 bucks to rent the movie online instead of buying the Blu ray disk for 500 bucks?

goobimama said:
The debate is between Blu ray vs an online movie distribution service like iTunes movie rentals. Movies will not be free of course

do you ever think that guys will be satisfied with online rentals ?

let me give you my example.

I have Tata Sky. I can rent a movie and watch it on my LCD TV.
its Rs. 75 for a day, watch anytime.
I get DVD Quality movies.

but I still prefer to buy the much cheaper REAL DVDs which are forever and legal.

Infact, I never used the Tata Sky Rental feature that was said to be the thing that will kill DVDs by Tata.

Real physical media always rule.

goobimama said:
^^ What if your internet was a speedy enough for instant playback with your remote without bandwidth caps and it was 150 bucks to rent the movie online instead of buying the Blu ray disk for 500 bucks?

don't talk too much about hypothetical situations.
anyway, piracy is still there

Infact, I never used the Tata Sky Rental feature that was said to be the thing that will kill DVDs by Tata.

That's cause the selection offered by the rental system is bunkass. You don't get the same variety of movies offered by a physical store. Also, piracy zindabaad is it?

don't talk too much about hypothetical situations.

I'm not talking hypothetical situations. Go to the States and you will find the basic internet connections are fast enough for instant playback. iTunes movie rentals are slowly picking up (although the selection is still small). Price for HD is $5 (Arnd 160?). Blu ray is $18 or so.

goobimama said:
So you saying you'd rather have your important data on something as unsafe as an optical disc?

so now optical disc's are a piece of crap for u???

goobimama said:
Go to the States and you will find the basic internet connections are fast enough for instant playback.

ya...wake up dude...cus the last time i checked it was still the land indian govt. i was standing on.

@napster:well said

I have said it and I will say it again. Optical discs are unreliable.

And this discussion we are having, is based on Microsoft thinking that optical discs are not going to be mainstream. That article was written by a dude in the States. I'm just defending his statement (although not entirely). I don't see how crappy Indian connections affects this. Although I will say that 2mbps connection is mighty enough for me...

#HDTV broacasts though cable or DTH will take atleast 3-4 years
#HD movies woudl take around 2-3years.
#Still most peopel do not know what HD is.
how many households own a 40+ inch TV, just leave apart few.
They to own one, as a status symbol not for HDTV content
Mostly Flat screen displays are seen in commercial environments.

Welcome to INDIA Folks.

In short INDIA is not HD ready.
forget True HD

goobimama said:
That's cause the selection offered by the rental system is bunkass. You don't get the same variety of movies offered by a physical store. Also, piracy zindabaad is it?

I'm not talking hypothetical situations. Go to the States and you will find the basic internet connections are fast enough for instant playback. iTunes movie rentals are slowly picking up (although the selection is still small). Price for HD is $5 (Arnd 160?). Blu ray is $18 or so.

I never said piracy zindabaad.
I use moser baer or t-series or similar low cost DVD movies which are LEGAL.

are you in india or the us ?

N

this statement by MS is only to prove that xbox 360 will still rule and PS3 has no benefit from blu-ray - acc to ms,not me.

^^despite all the above.....i strongly believe that the xbox will go down. maybe not right now but fast enough. Once the HD DVD is out of the picture there wont be much left of it.

as for the LIVE services it provides....i think it's the major reason why its got the success till now. The xbox has a steep slope ahead

^^ hd-dvd was never a reason why the xbox was selling

nah....trust me...nxt month...Microsoft will be out with a blu-ray addon saying that they misread the market and it is the way ahead.. lol

iMav said:
^^ hd-dvd was never a reason why the xbox was selling

no not really, but it has to be taken into consideration don't u think?

.... as a reason for xbox's so called future failure :lol:

dude ur talking like the europe xbox head .... in some years xbox will be history :lol:

u will condemn some 1 for something but do the same :lol:

awesome my fren

gx_saurav said:
1080p HD videos are usually useless, u need at least a 42" TV to view it properly. 720p Videos are good enough for most of the people.

I for once, will never download a 1080p video no matter what. My Monitor goes upto 1280X1024 so why download 1080p

720p DivX/Xvid Video usually come in 2 GB which have high quality with MP3 Audio or X.264 rips with H.263 Audio for PCs

never!!! so you wont be getting a new better display in future!!

A

Well Hd Dvd was never a compition to blue ray as blue ray had far more capacity and as we are getting more and more depended upon technology only thing which we need in future is more and more space so practicly speaking Blue ray had the edge on this front .
I think link is good for introducing more facts about the format war

L

goobimama said:
I have said it and I will say it again. Optical discs are unreliable.

Ok, this is not true. Are you saying optical discs are less reliable than magnetic discs (I assume circulating over internet meaning, its stored on hard disks or servers). But, I also have to assume they have backups. So, it may be worth it. But, Optical discs are definitely NOT unreliable.
When solid state hardisks replace magnetic hardisks, may be we can rely better on them.

To come to the topic, I have to agree with the argument of goobimama to some extent that, to those who have no problem with BW care a **** about getting a blueray disc or whatever with movie in it. I live in Germany, my connection speed is 9 MB per sec. That is right, it downloads at almost 100 Mbps (that of a LAN). I really don't give a rat's ass to get a blue ray disc and store it as a collection. But its totally personal.

However, as always the latest technology of storage is utilized in research labs for backing up day to day data, and is utilized for immediate reference and requires utmost security and backup under one's own care owing to protocols, blue-ray like technology is highly imperative, if not a success for, say a high quality 1080p movie format.

@goobimama, regarding 720p with 2 GB, it is absolutely possible. A 1 hour movie or tv-show comes in 720p with 1.07 GB and is available in the so called mkv format through out.
A blue-ray rip of a movie comes to about 4.4 GB (a DVD size app.) with 720p and is absolutely wondrous in quality.
I must also remind you, even though wav and flac formats are lossless, people prefer mp3 and give a rat's ass about the quality when you try to ridicule people with a 1% increase in quality or say, a 1080p resolution which requires a separate television. Most of the middle class who are well trained to know where to compromise. It all boils down to where people set their limit and stop compromising.

I know a 720p movie is of 4.3GB. Just that a full length movie (2 hours of proper quality against 43 mins of crappy quality of a TV show) cannot be fit on such a small size. Not unless the guy wants to get killed by releasing that on the net.

I personally forgot how this whole argument of magnetic vs optical began, but I will still stand by my statement. Of course, you can never ever backup enough. But when it comes to backing up movies, I though I would keep my HD movies safe. So I burnt each of them into good quality media, and stored them in an expensive CD case. When I wanted to watch the movie again, I find that the disc just doesn't read. Not all, just some. So I figured it was pointless of me doing this. On the other hand, a hard drive is generally more reliable. Of course, they crash (mine did along with all my movies, TV shows and whatnot). But it's rarer than finding your CD or DVD doesn't work. And when the hard drives work, they offer instant viewing, searching, transferring. The advantages of a hard drive over optical media are much more.

And what you say is right, most people don't give a rodent's rear end about a 1% increase in quality. 720p is more than enough for screen sizes upto 46" and even more so why would they bother about getting a disc? When they can just press the button on the remote and watch the movie instantly without bothering about anything.

L

Exactly, nobody would prefer blue-ray or for that matter a 1080 * 10 quality now, until the prices are affordable and the quality is distinctively distinguishable from its ripped counterpart for which they have to adopt newer technology televisions and computers which wont happen for now...

Its all in a circle, its like learning yoga to bend backwards to stick your head up your a**

(jus kidding)

technically speaking, optical discs are better off wayyyyy than magnetic discs and should enable more amount of writes than a normal magnetic hardisk, if not a solid state hardisk. But, even the same has happened to me regarding DVDs when I take backups only to find that they dont read when I damn needed it. But, I certainly dont blame the technology. May be I bought very low quality ones or some how defective ones...

But, regarding speed, what you say is true. From hardisks, its instant. You can always get terabytes of hardisk in less than the price of say a blue-ray disc writer and using them to store every disc.

I think , ms may have a point here...actually thinking about it...in the future who knows wor entire os may be on online and entire hard disk on some hosting or storage site...
Its nice to think in that way...but as for now people's mentality is to back up...
For example i do have loads of movies burnt on DVD but rarely only i see them twice...most of the times its a circulating business...

Bluray may be the last of what we call storage media or say a disc media...
I do think tom's computing is gona be on net...

Talk about sour grapes.

PS: This guy is talking out of his pants cuz he doesnt have a leg to stand on. Microsoft got pwnd and there's nothin he can do about it! Gambatte Sony!!